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JJ Abrams set to direct Star Wars: Episode VII

The Star Trek Into Darkness director will helm 2015's seventh Star Wars movie according to an “individual with knowledge of the production”

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Tom Cole

10:35 AM, 25 January 2013

Following months of rumours, denials and speculation, it appears that J.J. Abrams will be directing the upcoming seventh Star Wars film for Disney.

Lucasfilm president and Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy is said to have been courting Abrams for quite some time, and Abrams himself ‘revealed’ in December that he’d turned down the chance to direct Star Wars: Episode VII.

At the time, the director said he'd “rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making the film.”

But Abrams has since decided to take the job, according to an an unnamed “individual with knowledge of the production” cited by Hollywood news site The Wrap.

Argo director Ben Affleck had also been in the running but ultimately lost out to Abrams, whose involvement is now apparently a “done deal”.

Abrams, who co-created Lost, Fringe and Alias, is one of the most successful directors and producers in Hollywood today. He’s currently completing work on Star Trek Into Darkness, the second Trek film he’s made since rebooting the franchise in 2009, and has previously directed Mission Impossible III and Super 8.

Star Wars: Episode VII, which will boast a script by Little Miss Sunshine screenwriter Michael Arndt, is expected be released in 2015.